Found a bug for AI fleets departing planets in ver. 1.1

from GalCiv3 Forums

I don't know if anyone else noticed this yet, but I think I found a bug in how the AI uses fleets.

I was playing the Terrans and conducting a raid near a Drengin held planet. I knew it might be a suicide mission because they had a huge fleet in the planet's orbit. Sure enough, the next turn, they dispatched nearly their whole fleet. They didn't attack my fleet because I might have been just out of range.

One thing I found perplexing is that the ships they sent out didn't merge into a fleet. All of the ships appeared in the same hex, but individually, not as a group. I was able to take advantage of this and destroy their ships, one by one, like ducks in a row.

So it seems that there's a bug when an AI dispatches multiple ships from a planet. When I do it, the ships automatically merge into a fleet, provided I have enough logistical points. But when an AI faction does it, the ships become separate entities and do not merge (at least, not until the next turn). Anyone else notice this?

 

13,215 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I have seen this behavior as well. Keep in mind that in this case it may be that the Drengin did not have enough logistics to fleet up all the ships in that hex. This limitation is ignored when they are 'around planets'. In any event ai like players should auto fleet all ships in a hex up to the maximum allowed by logistics cap. 


Other coding would be to keep said ships in orbit to defend the planet, which I believe bypasses the logistics cap. I am not sure on this and others please correct me if I am wrong. 

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Yea I'm taking a break for a month or so to let SD work on the AI as well as other features.  AI seems to have ben getting easier.  Well I'll play AOW3 for the next month then pop back into the game.

 

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

the ships they sent out didn't merge into a fleet. All of the ships appeared in the same hex, but individually, not as a group. I was able to take advantage of this and destroy their ships, one by one, like ducks in a row.
End of quote

Yes, seen this multiple times. One of the big AI mistakes that make it lose no matter how much you give it handicap goodies...

Could the odd behavior be a consequence of routing the ships to different destinations? If I send two ships to two different destinations and they happen to end in the same hex while moving, they don't fleet up but remain separate. That would fit the observation.

In the AI discussion thread it was mentioned that the "no fog-of-war" actually causes it to make bad decisions because it sees too much and doesn't really understand why immediate near threats might be more important than stuff happening on the other side of the galaxy. So, maybe it's simply the AI trying to send ships out to do stuff somewhere else and it just can't understand that they will never get there because you will shoot them to bits one by one...

Anyway, the AI should definitely use fleets more. Actually, I can't see a downside for the AI operating only in max fleets of military ships in all its military related goals. That would automatically limit its options to a fewer number which might help it to find the most important tasks while at the same time keeping its forces concentrated. Even in cases where there are more things to do than available fleets it probably still would be better, at least for the AI, to just pick the more important one and sacrifice the other instead of dividing its fleet and having them both be defeated in detail.